Photo: © Wheneverstudio
Hallan
In 1948, as Jeju Island is swallowed by state violence, a six-year-old girl wanders the forests beneath Hallasan, robbed of her voice. Her mother, A-jin (Kim Hyang-gi, a world away from Along with the Gods), searches for her through a treacherous landscape where soldiers are ruthlessly crushing opposition to the country’s partition. The Jeju 4·3 Incident will leave an estimated 30,000 islanders dead; for decades, the subject remained censored, distorted, or too dangerous to speak about. Ha Myung-mi turns this history into a tense, elemental survival film, shot through sun-flooded greens and firefly-lit darkness, letting Jeju itself speak through a dialect dense enough to require subtitles even for Korean viewers. Hallan is the name of the winter orchid that flowers on Hallasan when nothing else will.
